The Dog Returns: We Are Repeat Offenders a. Abraham moves. You’ll notice in verse one that Abraham moves from living at the oaks of Mamre and he heads south toward the Negeb. The Bible tells us that he settles at a place called Gerar. If you know your Bible geography, then you know that this area was the home of the Philistines. The question is, why does Abraham move? The Bible doesn’t say specifically why. Some speculate it had to do with seeing God utterly destroy the valley of Sodom and Gomorrah. Did he move in fear or was the fallout from the destruction of that area cause far reaching physical and economical effects? Whatever reason Abraham moves, it was not going to have a good consequence. b. The dog example. When you read verse 2 you get the feeling that we’ve been here before. Didn’t Abraham tell the Egyptians that Sarah was his sister? That only worked out because God intervened. Why would he do this again? We’ll get to a little more explanation of this in a moment but I think we should pause here and consider a proverb. It’s kind of a gross proverb, which is what makes it memorable, but it is also one that the apostle Peter liked. Proverbs 26:11: “Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.” Unfortunately, even followers of God sometimes play the fool. Sins that are indulged often come back to haunt us. Even if we have had victory over that specific sin for a long time, like the dog, we return to that sin. Abraham has returned to his error, one from which he was rebuked previously, but, here he returns again. “She is my sister,” he says. c. The promise in danger. The king of Gerar, seeing that Sarah was a supposed unmarried woman, take her into his harem. According to the custom of the time, he was within his right to do so. And so, this woman who had received the promise that she would conceive by her husband Abraham and have a child by the next year is in the household of Abimelech. Do you see what is going on here? There was a certain timeline that was promised by God and what Abraham has done directly contravenes that promise. If what God promised is going to happen it will only take place if God intervenes. www.trainforeternity.com